Claude Lévi-Strauss
1908-2009
Claude Lévi-Strauss, (born Nov. 28, 1908, Brussels, Belg.—died Oct. 30, 2009, Paris, France), French social anthropologist and leading exponent of structuralism, a name applied to the analysis of cultural systems (e.g., kinship and mythical systems) in terms of the structural relations among their elements. Structuralism has influenced not only 20th-century social science but also the study of philosophy, comparative religion, literature, and film. The most incisive critique of totemistic phenomena, one that denied the “reality” of totemism, was supplied by the French ethnologist Claude... After studying philosophy and law at the University of Paris (1927–32), Lévi-Strauss taught in a secondary school and was associated with Jean-Paul Sartre’s intellectual circle. He served as professor of sociology at the University of São Paulo, Brazil (1934–37), and did field research on the Indians of Brazil. He was visiting professor at the New School for Social Research in New York City (1941–45), where he was influenced by the work of linguist Roman Jakobson. From 1950 to 1974 he was director of studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études at the University of Paris, and in 1959 he was…
Films